The present invention relates to a vehicle safety control apparatus for avoiding collision, and more particularly to a safety control apparatus for avoiding collision which performs driver assistance (accident avoidance assistance control) in an ASV (Advanced Safety Vehicle).
In recent years, in order to reduce damage upon occurrence of an accident, there have been proposed a collision state control system and a collision avoidance apparatus being a forward obstacle collision reduction control apparatus used in a vehicle such as an automobile, which identifies an obstacle by use of a radar mounted in the vehicle and performs automatic control when the running vehicle is likely to collide with the obstacle (for example, Japanese Patent No. 3467339, JP-A-7-132787).
According to conventional art, there is provided a system which predicts occurrence of a collision based on a rate of distance change between the vehicle and a forward obstacle detected by a range sensor, or which monitors based on signals from a vehicle speed sensor or a range sensor using a radar whether or not a headway distance to the preceding vehicle is kept at a safety distance and thereby predicts occurrence of a collision, or which automatically causes a brake to operate in a stepwise manner when the headway distance is equal to or less than the safety distance.